


Overture

by confettiinmyhair



Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies)
Genre: (for once), Breaking Up & Making Up, Canon Compliant, Chess, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Medium Burn, Multi, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, lora baines getting everything she deserves, pretty boys wrecking lives & breaking hearts, spiteful exes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 21:25:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 9,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11134992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confettiinmyhair/pseuds/confettiinmyhair
Summary: Four years in the life, and figuring out that sometimes, there is no single bright light in anyone's cosmos.





	1. 1978 (May)

“My _logic_? Simple 'no' isn't enough for you?” Lora asked with a snort, sitting up. She knocked back the last mouthful of her beer, then snagged her t-shirt from the floor, tugging it back on. 

Kevin was still sprawled out on the bed behind her - she could see him by nothing but the light of two candles on the side table as she glanced back, doing her best not to laugh.

“You’re graduating, and all of these recruiters are throwing themselves at you, so I should drop everything and follow? Mr. Free Love over here wants to play _house_ with me? How long do you think that's actually gonna last, Kev?” 

He shrugged gently at that, raising a hand from the bedding to rest on the small of her back.

“You could transfer to a university wherever I move, you know. Fresh place, fresh faces, fresh outlook.”

Finally letting the laugh out, she stood, felt his hand slip away as she stepped over to the little fridge in the corner for another beer.

“No way. You can stick around and play housewife to _me_ ,” she shot back, pushing the fridge door shut with her heel as she leaned back against the wall, taking in the sight of him in the low, flickering light.

God damn if he wasn’t the best time she’d ever had – and the best-looking of them all, too.

And sure, he was a particular kind of genius. That had been what had drawn her in, after all.

But facts were facts: they had broken up and gotten back together three times in the past two and a half years. They were not built for the long haul, and the last thing she wanted was them carrying on that pattern in some strange city.

“Hey, maybe. I’d look good in heels, doing the vacuuming. Yeah?” he smirked, as if daring her not to be charmed.

She flipped him off, then ran her hand through her hair as she took her first sip of the fresh bottle.

“You'd be miserable, and we both know it.”

*

He didn’t let it drop until the day she was helping him clear out his dorm.

_Marry me, marry me, at least let me come home to you._

He was going home for a few weeks, getting himself together while he decided on a job. She would have come along, but she would have missed the first week of summer term, would have lost out on Dr. Gibbs’ internship.

And so he swore her up and down that he’d call her, that he’d write, that he’d make sure to drop in...

...And it was October before she realized how much time had passed, how long it had been since she’d heard from him, and realized how sad she _wasn’t_.

She thought fondly of him, her sunshine boy, but she knew that wherever he was (probably somewhere in Texas, by then, or somewhere up the coast), he was probably making a fine terror of himself while she would be able to finish her degree (and begin work on her latest project) in the clean peace of the laboratory where she now worked.

She did find one of his Steely Dan albums in her living room around Halloween, and considered mailing it to him via his parents. She decided against it, though – Lora Baines may have prided herself on her practical logic, but that didn’t mean sentimentality was off the table.


	2. 1979 (January)

The ongoing office chess tournament against Dr. Gibbs’ MCP was a point of jealous pride in Alan Bradley’s life.

Only one user could play against the program at a time, but anyone on the company network could drop in to watch others play.  There was a dual leaderboard that reset on the 15th of every month, with rankings for the best time, and the fewest number of moves.

He’d managed to get as high as third for the speed ranking, but he was most concerned with defending his move count.  
He’d ranked first every month running for a year and a half… until September. Until the new hire batch.

He had yet to meet any of them personally – they worked different shifts, on a different floor.  
He couldn’t identify them by user handle, either.  New hires were saddled with a generic ‘Creator’ handle for the first year of their employment, or their first promotion, whatever came first.

He was determined, tonight, to actually see Creator4983 in action.

He watched the digital clock on the far wall, ticking up towards midnight, towards his chance to actually catch this punk -

“Hi!” rang out a rather-too-chipper voice behind him.

Alan turned from his computer – he didn’t think anyone was still in this office at this hour.

“Uh. Hi. Can I help you with something?”

The younger man (Handsome, Alan immediately thought. Too handsome to be real.) held out a hand, and Alan had to remind himself that he was looking for a handshake; Alan stood and reciprocated.

Was the kid lost? His shoes were nice enough, but he was in a faded t-shirt and a pair of somewhat dingy corduroys, with a tatty canvas knapsack hanging off one shoulder.

“You tell me, man. I’m looking for an Alan Bradley. Told me downstairs he’d still be up here, said he hadn’t signed out yet and that I should look for the guy in the big glasses, and, uh,” the kid cast around the mostly-empty cubicles, raising his eyebrows significantly, “I’m guessing that means you.”

Alan nodded as he pulled his hand back. “I’d say you guessed correctly. What can I do for you?”

“Right, right! I was told that you-” he said, unslinging the bag to rummage for something, “would want some updated system protocols for the security matrix. I figured it’d be faster than letting you wait for the network update.”

The young man held out a sheathed floppy disk, glancing over at the screen as Alan accepted it from him. His smile grew somehow more open, more delighted.

“Oh, right on, you go in for the chess games! What’s your handle, man?”

Alan glanced back. It was 12:01 now, and the board was cleared.

“Alan-01. I was kinda hoping to swing in right as the ranks refreshed, or you wouldn’t have caught me. You play?”

The kid let out a short bark of a laugh.

“No way! Oh, man! You’re the only one who’s even been able to touch me – you overtook me back in… what, just before Christmas? I saw that game. You have a  _ brilliant _ strategy.”

Alan did his best not to let his face betray his shock.

“I’m sorry, you are…?”

“Oh, sorry – Kevin Flynn! Creator4983? I was starting to think you were just another program thrown in as a red herring, man! This is so awesome. Listen, I gotta get back downstairs, but we,” he smiled, reaching out to clap a hand on Alan’s shoulder, “should jam in real life sometime. I bet you’d destroy me one-on-one. What was that thing, from Star Wars? ‘Good against remotes is one thing’? Look me up in the directory sometime.”

All Alan could do was watch, confounded, as Flynn headed back towards the elevator. He was genuinely unsure as to whether the kid had been flirting with him or mocking him, and he wasn’t sure which was more disconcerting.


	3. 1979 (August)

“Hi. Do you mind if I sit here?”

Alan looked up from the documentation he was reviewing, pausing mid-bite, and nodded.  The woman plonked her tray down, sat gracelessly, and ran her hands through her hair before she looked down at the food.

“Much obliged, stranger. At least they know we’d probably waste away if they didn’t toss us a meal occasionally, huh?”

Alan shrugged as he finished his own mouthful, returning her grin.

“If you can call this food, sure.”

“Well, it sure is...  _ something _ , anyhow. I’m Lora Baines. How about you?”

She wasn’t holding out her hand for a shake, already digging into what was meant to be spaghetti.

“Alan Bradley. I work up in programming. How about you?”

Lora nodded at him, swallowed, and let out a quick laugh.

“Sorry. Just realized how hungry I am. I’m down in the quantum labs – the laser bays. Haven’t eaten since breakfast, haven’t spoken to anyone all afternoon, saw you sitting here, thought - why not? Unless I’m bothering you,” she said, gesturing with her fork at the printout stack in front of him before she took more pasta.

“This? Nah. Just glancing over some stuff. I, uh… look that lonely, huh?”

Her eyes crinkled up with a smile as she chewed, and she shrugged.

“So, can you talk about the laser work, or is that all very hush-hush?” he asked, giving her time to swallow again.

“Hm? Well, you probably signed the same NDA we all did, right? Company secrets are company secrets?”

Alan laughed, picking up his can of 7-Up. “Signed it, actually helped write the first version.”

“Huh. Doesn’t legal usually do that?” she asked, eyes narrowing, and he felt himself blush a little. 

“Oh, sure. Lawyers don’t know shit about tech, though. Had to make sure there wasn’t anything left out in the open.”

Lora was nodding gently, though Alan couldn't shake the feeling that he was being scrutinized. 

“Smart. Very smart idea. Now… you know, give me just one moment, I do believe I forgot to grab a coffee.”

He watched her walk away to one of the far counters, and shook his head, taking the opportunity for another big bite of his sub.

He wasn’t a loner, precisely. He  _ did  _ have friends outside of work.

It had just been a very long time since he’d had someone offer to eat with him, outside of needing to go over a project.

This was new.

(He never had taken that Flynn fellow up on his offer to “jam” – whatever _that_ meant – had he? It was only then that the thought occurred to him that he actually hadn’t seen Creator4983 on the chess board in a month or two. Maybe he should look him up after all.)

“Penny for your thoughts.”

He blinked, realized that his companion was back with her drink.

“Sorry, that happens sometimes.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Happens to us all. So, Bradley, you said? I think Gibbs has mentioned you. You have a lot to do with the security programming, right?”

There was something in her tone (and the kind of searching edge to her expression) that made him go bright red all over again.

“I do. Encryption work, mostly. Our internal system isn’t getting any less complicated, and with more and more internetworking happening, I’m - I’m trying to get us as protected as possible in advance.”

Lora smiled and took a big gulp of her coffee.

“Hey, no need to be modest. I don’t even do too much with practical applications. I’m mostly doing, you know. Quantum teleportation theory, research into possible medical applications. Things like that.”

Alan nodded, with a grin, “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, there. Is it as sci-fi as it sounds?”

Lora’s expression morphed into an exaggerated caricature of consideration.

“I don’t know, I think all of our jobs sound pretty sci-fi. When you think about it, I mean.”

That got a laugh out of him, and Lora’s eyes crinkled at the corners again.

"I guess they do."


	4. 1979 (September)

“ _Connection not detected_? Oh, what the hell,” Lora muttered, walking around the back of her terminal to glance at the router.

No lights.  
Of course not.

She fiddled with the connectors, flipped the power switch off, counted to five, and switched it back on. Nothing.

She wandered around the corner to check the other terminals - everyone had gone for the night, but she wasn’t seeing any router activity there, either.

A glance at her watch told her that it was just past nine…

Back at her own terminal, she picked up the phone. Dial tone! Well, that was a start - maybe it wasn't the entire building. 

She punched in Alan’s extension, wondering if her occasional dinner partner had left for the night.

“ _This is Bradley, what can I do for you?_ ” 

“Hey, Alan.”

“ _Oh! Hi, Lora. I already took my break, sorry about that._ ”

“Huh? Oh, no, but I’m sorry I missed you. No, is your network connection down? I wanted to check elsewhere before I bother Support.”

“ _Ah. Too much sci-fi overloading the servers down there?_ ”

She rolled her eyes, even if she let herself grin.

“I’ll take that as a no. Catch you tomorrow night?”

“ _Yeah! You up for 6?_ ”

“Yeah. I’ll let you know if I’m gonna run over.”

“ _Sure. You have a good night, Ms. Baines._ ”

“You, too, Mr. Bradley.”

As she replaced the receiver, she huffed out a quiet laugh. She was about ready to give up on waiting for Alan to actually ask her on a real date, and was going to have to do it herself.

But there would be time for that later.

Her steps echoed almost eerily in the empty lab, and she spent the entire elevator ride up to the third floor bracing herself to make demands – for some reason, Support didn’t take the L-Bays too seriously on non-emergency issues.

She rounded the corner, pulled open the office door, and stopped dead.

Support was a room with four desks and no cubicle dividers.

Tonight, one desk was empty, two were occupied by techs she’d seen around, and one was occupied by possibly the _last_ person she’d expected to see.

For a split second, she considered backing out of the door before she was noticed, but found her nerve all the same. She squared her shoulders, strode past the reception desk with a wave and a nod, and approached the terminal of one Kevin Flynn.

He looked up as she moved into his periphery, one of his big, easy smiles already spreading on his face.

“Well, well! Finally tracked me down, huh?”

Lora allowed herself a moment to collect her thoughts, and not shout at him, to keep her tone calm and businesslike.

“No, actually. I’m here about the network outage down in L-Bay 1.”

“Have you tried-”

“Turning my router off and back on again and testing the connectors? Yes, mom.”

“Huh! Well, no harm in asking… hang on.”

He turned back to the keyboard, hit a rapid series of keystrokes that banished his lines of code and brought up a command menu. After a few more inputs, he looked up apologetically.

“Looks like the main hub down there blew a fuse, if I had to guess,” he said, reaching under his desk for a tool kit. “You coming?”

She very pointedly did not speak until they were in the elevator, and even then, didn’t trust herself to make eye contact. She could feel the ire balling up under her ribs, and wasn’t going to let him charm his way out of this.

“You know, I know I said I wouldn’t marry you. But ‘go and make your own way’ didn’t mean you should drop off the face of the earth. Especially if you were going to show up _at my job_.”

“I’ve been on the directory since last September! I’m surprised it took you this long to find me,” he defended. 

She did finally look over at him, flabbergasted.

“How was I supposed to know to look, Kev? You’ve been here for over a year and you couldn’t even drop in to say hello? For crying out loud!”

He raised one hand in a shrug, looking more sheepish than actually guilty.

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

The doors slid open, and she dropped her voice as she stepped out of the compartment. Kevin made directly for the far end of the lab, where the cabinet that held the main networking hub was kept.

“Anyway, what are you doing in tech support?” she asked, watching as he opened the kit and went to pulling off a casing panel.

“Huh? Oh, this isn’t my real job. I owed a guy a favor, he needed the night off, I offered to sit in for him. I’m still in Systems Engineering, don’t worry – I even get to work on my own projects while I babysit his station.”

She watched him for a long few moments, watched as he found the blown fuse, wiggled it out, and found a fresh one in the kit. She knew that look – for a moment, she wasn’t even there as far as he was concerned.

He closed the panel, shut the kit, and finally stood to look at her.

“Are you really that mad at me?” he asked, the little grin never leaving.

“Am… hell. No, I guess I’m not. It’s not like I tried too hard to find you once you moved… I just figured you’d check in once you got where you were going. Are you… you know. Happy?”

Kevin nodded.

“I am. Assistant manager of the department, as of last week. I’m doing some really big-time stuff in my off time, too, it’s gonna knock everyone’s socks off. How about you?”

Lora nodded.

“Yeah. Still in the schematics and modelling phase, but if it plays out, Gibbs has a permanent spot for me on the research team.”

“That’s wild! See, you get to say you were right after all,” he said, the grin growing toothy.

“I almost always get to say that,” she finally smiled, arching an eyebrow. 

“And so the world spins on as it should. Alright, your connection should be back up, but ring the desk if it goes back down,” he said, tossing her a wink and a wave as he walked off.

She watched him head back toward the elevator, kind of surprised at herself for the way she was watching him go. She knew that she was over him emotionally – and had never been terribly attached to him to begin with – but it was odd being so casual with him. (There was a spark still, of course. At least for her. Him looking like that, how could there not be?)


	5. 1979 (October)

As they had for the past two Saturdays running, they met at a café about halfway between their apartments.

It was a six block walk for Kevin, and a seven block walk for Alan.

Alan was absolutely delighting in it. They’d spent the first Saturday more or less simply getting used to each other’s strategies, while the second Saturday had been as much of a mutual bloodbath as chess could be said to be.

Equally delightful to the games had been the conversation. Where Lora wasn’t one for much small talk in their dinner chats, Kevin seemed to absolutely luxuriate in it.

Today, five games in, they’d ended in stalemate every single time. Flynn was in an odd sort of mood, too – he seemed far less open and easy than Alan had come to expect.

“You gonna call it, or should I?” Kevin finally asked. Alan shrugged, fiddling with his mug.

“Hell. Let’s call it in general, huh?”

“Sure, man. You up for another?”

Alan raised an eyebrow, glancing between Kevin and the board.

“I’m up for it… are you? I mean, you seem a little off, today.”

That seemed to at least cut through the exhausted funk that Kevin had settled into.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess, sorry. Work stuff.”

“Maybe I can help?” Alan offered, without even a second thought. Kevin raised his eyebrows, shrugging.

“Unless you know how to undo a massive code wipe, I doubt it, man.”

“How massive are we talking?”

 Kevin toyed with the rook he’d been resetting, sighing his way through an entire lower octave before he answered.

“Oh, it was just... a side project I was working on. Few big programs, and two I was still building. Off-time stuff I was just using the company machines to compile, you know? So, I go in on Tuesday, I boot up the disks after work? Nothing. A year of work, just... gone. Not a trace of it. No trace of any tampering on my terminal, nothing that support can find.  _ Gone _ .”

“You think it was... stolen, or something?” Alan asked, setting his mug down on the table, watching Kevin turn chess pieces over in his hands.

“I mean, it’s possible. Anything’s possible, man. I just can’t wrap my brain around the fact that there’s no  _ trace _ of what happened. Maybe it was a glitch. Maybe I need to be a little bit more zen about it. Maybe something better will come. Who knows?”

Alan wasn’t entirely sure how best to respond to that, but Kevin seemed to shake himself out of it suddenly. With a deep breath, his smile was back.

“Forget that, though, right? One of us has to win today. Let’s do this.”


	6. 1979 (December, Pt. 1)

For a moment, Alan was impressed that Kevin had even remembered his address, from when they’d been discussing meetups for games.

But just for a moment.

 

_I’m sorry for the trouble. Honest.  
_ _Here’s looking at you, kid.  
_ _\- KF_

 

The bouquet was almost obscenely large, all purples and blues, and the vase felt heavy enough to bludgeon someone with.  
There’d been a small wooden case leaned against it, on the stoop, and Alan recognized it right away as Kevin’s folding chess set.

He was unsure what it was meant to be, same as that conversation the night they'd met. It looked like some sort of grand romantic gesture, but felt for all the world like a mockery.

Especially after the past three days.

Kevin had used him.  
Alan didn’t understand what he’d hoped to accomplish by it, but he’d used Alan’s security access to try and hack Encom’s primary servers.

Had it not been for corroborating security footage, the fact that the attack was technically routed through the entire department’s terminals, and the fact that the investigators felt that Kevin was the only one with sufficient motive (his ‘forced resignation’, for reasons nobody would discuss), Alan could have been fired, or possibly even arrested.

And the smug prick had the gall to send him tokens, like some jilted girlfriend?

He chucked the flowers directly into the dumpster behind his building. He at least had the satisfaction of hearing the vase shatter on impact.

The chess set, though... he couldn’t bring himself to junk that. He set it up on a top shelf of his front hall closet, for reasons he didn’t feel like examining too closely in that particular moment.

 

**

 

The flowers were a surprise.

Lora had been on her way out to the library before her morning class, and had nearly kicked the big vase over by accident

As she picked them up and brought them inside to the kitchen, she wondered if it wasn’t some kind of grand opening gesture on Alan’s part (at last), and was honestly wondering how he knew that she favored daisies and marigolds.

The little card was half-hidden under some of the leaves, and as she opened it, she had to sit down against the counter.

 

_Looks like I’m gonna be out of your hair again (maybe for a long time, maybe not), but I WAS listening when you told me not to vanish without a trace._   
_I’ll see you around, Baines._   
_– KF_

 

Asshole. They were very nice flowers, though.

She took the card into the bedroom and dropped it into a little cigar box of mementos at the back of her sock drawer, smiling in spite of herself.

He was a selfish prick, but he could be a decent person on occasion.


	7. 1979 (December, Part 2)

The company Christmas party, two nights later, was a complete drag in every sense.

Lora could not have been less concerned with the nuances of upper-office politics, with who was going to make Executive or score promotions or demotions after the winter software rollouts. It had no actual effect on the labs, after all was said and done.

(She did hear some kind of gossip about Kevin’s apparent “resignation” – at least that explained the card. Something about security breaches, and a scene made on one of the upper floors. If he was in a place of mind to be able to send her flowers afterwards, though, she wasn’t too worried.)

She allowed herself a bit more to drink than was the norm, after the catering was over. The punch was god-awful and too strong, but it was rare enough for her to indulge like that, and she’d earned it.

Dr. Gibbs had told her quietly that morning that if she was ready to really kick into the testing phase, he was willing to bring her on to the primary team come January.

Damned right, she was going to allow herself a little celebration.

When the inanity of the chatter finally got to be too much, she excused herself from the lab crew.

She’d spotted Alan a ways away, and reached... a Decision.

He was standing quietly on the edge of a group, listening to a conversation about the long-term viability of various storage media.

She reached her free hand up to rest gently on his left shoulder to get his attention.

“Hey. Are you invested here?” she asked, quietly.

He turned enough to glance down at her, shrugging slightly.

“Not particularly,” he said, a warm little grin on his lips. “Why, am I needed elsewhere?”

Lora feigned a pensive noise as she took another big mouthful of the punch, and raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

“You know? I think you may just be. I think… we should get out of here.”

“Should we?”

His hesitance was more obvious than she’d been expecting, and she sighed, taking care not to let her voice project too much.

“Look, Alan. If I’ve misread something, I’m sorry. But I like you, and I think you like me. So I think, maybe, you should go and get your coat, and we should go get a taxi. Unless you’d rather go and find a supply closet with me.”

He actually laughed at that, and she watched a (familiar, wonderful, perfect) light blush come up on his cheeks.

“You sure this isn’t just the punch talking? I saw how much rum got dumped in there.”

It was an effort for Lora not to roll her eyes as she grinned up at him.

“Okay, maybe a little bit. But mostly? I’ve wanted this for months, and I’m getting impatient. So, do you want this, or are you gonna make me wait for the new year?”

*

Even in moments like these, Lora found herself unable to turn off her observational instincts.

She was struck by how very different Alan looked out from under the fluorescent tube lighting at work. (He looked… more real, somehow, even under the streetlamps as they hailed down a cab.)

He wasn’t particularly grabby, either, though he did keep running his fingers along hers, where their hands touched on the seat between them. There was something oddly sweet about that, and about the way he kept glancing over at her as they rode back to her place.

Having said that, he was remarkably less reluctant once they were inside, in the stairwell, as she pulled him against her – one hand clutched at the front of his jacket, the other gripped up on his shoulder. His hands moved to her waist, and she sighed into the first slow kiss, at the feeling of him relaxing into the embrace.

They stayed that way for a long few minutes, up against the wall, breaking away and pulling back in over and over again.

It was Alan who finally took a step back, his gaze fixed on her mouth.

“We should have been doing this months ago,” she whispered.

He huffed a little laugh at that.

“I wasn't about to presume.”

“Unreal,” she smiled dreamily, pushing him a step further back, reaching into her pocket for her keys, and leading the way up the stairs. “Now, come on, before we scandalize my neighbors.”

*

Lora let Alan shut the door behind them, and then tugged him through the entryway, doing her best to tug him out of his coat as they went.

For all she cared, he could have had her right down on the living room floor, but they somehow, somehow, made it into her bedroom.

They did not, however, make it under the covers, nor did they bother with turning off the lights.

All the better, in Lora’s opinion, as it revealed two things to her.

First of all, Alan Bradley blushed  _ everywhere _ , and it was lovely. 

And yet, he wasn’t shy about the act itself. He wasn’t pushy, or forceful, but he was absolutely unselfconscious once he was out of his clothes.  
  
(As much as she hated comparing, hated thinking of anyone else, it was impossible not to think of Kevin. They shared a similar unbashful thoroughness, and that was something she’d only ever experienced with the two of them.)

There was no rush, no frenzy, just the easy stretch as he slid two fingers up her, the high sighs that she let out as he dragged his tongue slow and firm against her clit, taking her up and over. She was still trembling with it as he moved back up, as she could taste herself on his lips.  
  
Which brought her to her second discovery: not only was Alan's hair surprisingly soft to the touch – it was an absolute delight to keep running her hands through - but he looked incredible in ways she hadn’t been able to imagine with his glasses off and his hair mussed out of place.  
  
They were tangled all around each other when he finally rocked into her, slow and deep. She wouldn’t have called it gentle, but perhaps… indulgent.

They didn’t speak much, but she did find herself gasping out a few choice curses as she hit her peak for a second time in less than an hour. He must have been holding on for her, as he followed moments later, groaning wordlessly against her shoulder as he came.

Later, after they moved under the covers, and she finally switched the lamp off, he wrapped an arm around her and asked, quietly, “So… months now?”

“You’ll find that I say what I mean,” she smiled, not sure if he could even see it.

“When, then?”

She tried to pick out his expression in the dark before she answered.

“Look out, folks, he goes right for the throat with the pillow talk. Alright. You blushed at me the first time we ate dinner together, and I wanted to know how far down that blush went. Kind of just escalated from there.”

“I don’t know how I feel about being objectified like this, Ms. Baines,” he answered. The teasing in his voice set her to laughing before she answered. 

“Let me catch my breath, and I'll show you objectifying .”


	8. 1981 (April)

The message on the card stock had been in an all too familiar hand, and she mulled over it for two or three days before she made up her mind to go.  
Thankfully, he’d given her the courtesy of time-enough to consider.

_ Sorry I dropped off the planet again. I don’t think I’ve gotten where I’m going, but I thought I might let you know where I landed.  
_ _ I’d say bring quarters, but I think it can be on me, this time around. - KF _

FLYNN’S ARCADE, read the bold lettering on the other side of the card, advertising for a grand opening that weekend. The address was listed as the corner of Mead and Watseka, which Lora was pretty sure she knew how to get to.

**

In truth, Lora had never actually been inside an arcade – it wasn’t really her scene, especially with the hours she worked. It made sense that Kevin might feel so at ease here, though, flitting between the machines, under the gaudy neon and the too-loud jukebox.

It was an escapist paradise, and he’d never really had both feet on the ground, had he?

She wandered about, watched teenagers and college kids play their hearts out for an hour or two, occasionally caught up to Kevin as he mingled and demonstrated games.

It was around midnight that things started winding down, and he nodded her up towards what she’d assumed was an office.

Technically, she wasn’t wrong. It was clearly meant to be an office, but had been converted to some kind of apartment space – though it held nothing but a bed, a couch, and some kind of computer setup on a work bench.

“So, what do you think?” he smiled, using his sweeping, cast-about gesture to offer a beer from the same fridge he’d had back at Cal-Tech.

Lora accepted, and shrugged.

“It’s not where I’d ever have placed you, but it’s a good fit. I can’t believe you resigned from Encom for  _ this _ , though.”

He cocked an eyebrow as he cracked his beer, dropping down onto the couch, “Well, crazier things have happened.”

She could tell that he was holding something back, but decided to let it go, and took the bottle opener from him.

“Now, tell me how the infamous Ms. Baines is doing these days,” he said, in that infectiously cheerful manner. 

Lora took a long pull from the bottle before she answered.

“Oh, not much. Head of the research team over in L-Bay 2 these days. Steady boyfriend. Good salary. I adopted a cat. Finishing my Ph.D. come winter.”

Kevin snapped his fingers and winked at her.

“Hitting all those goals after all. Steady boyfriend, though? Tell me about him.”

“Why, are you jealous?” she grinned back. He tossed out a laugh and shook his head.

“Call it professional curiosity. Anyone good enough to merit a  _ mention _ in your achievements has to be some kind of catch.”

She laughed back, caught up in the old easiness of it all.

“His name is Alan. He heads up System Security at work.”

Something shifted slightly in Kevin’s expression, but he nodded.

“What, Bradley? Yeah, I knew him! Nice guy.  _ Goofy _ glasses, though.”

“Be nice, Kev. It’s the longest relationship I’ve ever been in.”

“Categorically not true. We made it, what, two and a half years?”

Lora’s laughter was half-scoffed.

“Sure, if you don’t count all of those’breaks’ we took. And don’t give me any bluster about being the only woman in your heart – I know about most of the girls you saw on those breaks. And some of the boys.”

He shook his head, his smile only widening.

“Come on, you wanna tell me every lay you’ve ever had was  _ meaningful _ ? ‘Sides, I’ll note you didn’t bring Mr. +1 along tonight.”

She rolled her eyes as she took another swallow of her beer.

“You’re incorrigible. No, he has a project he’s finishing up, and I thought it would be nice to get out. It’s not as though we’re joined at the hip.”

“Speaking of joined at the hip, he  _ is _ a good lay, though, right? Ass like that, I’d have to hope so.”

“Why am I surprised? And for the record… yes, he is,” she sighed, eyes pointedly wide. 

Kevin’s sighing laughter pulled at something, that old space under her ribs. 

“I think I might be jealous, after all, Baines.  Not of you, I mean that I didn’t get in there when I had a chance.”

“I’m sorry, when you had the  _ chance _ ?” she asked, eyebrows creeping up her forehead. 

“What, he’s never mentioned me? Straight through the heart!” Kevin gasped, miming like a fainting damsel. “He and I had some fierce competition going on over the MCP Chess game. It was a start.”

“It’s astounding the things that you take for flirtation.”

“It’s amazing the things you discount,” he shrugged. 

Lora slugged the last of the beer, set the bottle on the coffee table, and stood.

“Maybe so. Maybe so. Well. Thank you for the drink, and don’t be a stranger, okay? Besides, I know where you live now.”

“Bring your boyfriend along next time, and we’ll have a real party,” he said, eyebrows wiggling.

“Good _ bye _ , Kevin.”


	9. 1982 (September 23)

Watched pots never boiled.  
And yet here they were, sitting patiently in his cubicle, waiting for Flynn to signal that he’d broken through.

Alan was reading quietly, kicked back in his chair, while Lora was hunched over on the floor, worked on annotating a couple of sets of blueprint schematics.  
They’d been waiting for almost four hours, and neither of them had really spoken.

And then, around 5:30, Lora finally cleared her throat.

Alan turned, found her leaned back against the cubicle wall, looking up at him.

“You know, I’ve never asked. Not - not even that night that you got mad at me for going to see him. Why does he piss you off so much? You’re not really  _ that  _ jealous of me, are you?”

Blinking slowly, Alan pushed up his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose.

“Do you  _ not _ know what happened?”

Lora gestured, half-defeated, and he racked his memory for a moment.

“Oh, hell. I didn’t see you again until the Christmas party, did I? Has nobody ever told you about this?”

“Well, obviously not,” she said, eyebrows raised. Alan took a deep breath, trying not to laugh in exhaustion.

“Okay. Well. Nobody knew why he got forced out, remember? Or why he pitched such a fit when Ed got promoted. We assumed it was some kind of professional jealousy, or a personal beef that got out of hand. Something  _ really _ childish, and who would have been surprised, right?”

Lora nodded slowly, and Alan continued.

“So, the same day we find out about his ‘resignation’? I get called upstairs. I walk into a conference room, and these legal goons are sitting there, waiting for me. Now, they’re apparently waiting for some security footage, and some corroboration that Support is trying to do for them, but the gist of it is this: the valiant Mr. Flynn allegedly cracked my terminal - used my system access - to try and hit a couple of the secure servers. Well. Maybe he did, or maybe, I  _ helped him do it _ . After all, we were getting chummy outside of work. Knew each other socially. Might even have been called _friends_. And they didn’t just want to fire me, oh, no. If there was proof that I’d even been in the building when it happened, and if Support hadn’t figured out that the attack was routed through three other terminals at the same time, I could have gone to jail."

He watched her take that all in, saw the expression on her face that meant that she was choosing her phrasing.

“Has it occurred to you that you’re risking the exact same thing tonight? I mean, if he’s wrong,” she nodded, tone hushed. 

“If he’s wrong… I recognize that possibility,” Alan nodded, slowly.

“And you know, I’m not rubbing your face in it, but you know that… doing this just to try and screw over Dillinger, you’re being just as petulant, and childish, as he is?”

He saw the grin toying at the edges of her mouth, and did his best to keep from mirroring it.

“The thought has occurred. You wanna talk about rubbing my face in it, though? He sent me flowers the day after I got cleared. Flowers, and a chess set.”

Lora blinked for a few seconds, and moved to pull her glasses off before she burst out laughing.

“Okay, that one stings a little, Lor.”

She caught her breath almost reluctantly after a few moments, her face red from the effort.

“Good christ, Alan! He wasn’t mocking you, he was  _ apologizing _ . And he was probably flirting with you.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Alan groused. thumbing at the pages of his book by way of an idle gesture. Anything to not look up, to give her anything to see in his expression.

“Yeah, I  _ am _ sure. He may have a backwards sense of humor, but he knows when he’s messed up. And he does like you.”

“Bull absolute  _ shit _ ,” Alan fumbled out.

“Bull-true, thank you very much,” she shrugged.

“And you know this, how, exactly?”

“You remember the night I went to the arcade to see him?”

Alan rolled his eyes by way of acknowledgement.

“Well, when I mentioned you to him, the first thing he asked was if you were as good a lay as he thought you’d be, direct quote. I didn’t even know you’d known each other.”

The instinct to melt through the floor, or evaporate, overtook Alan completely. The expression on Lora’s face, and the twinkle in her eye, weren’t helping matters.

“And here I thought I’d already seen how hard you can blush. My word,” she teased.

It took a long moment before Alan could pull a sentence together.

“I’m sorry, you  _ discussed _ me with him?” he nearly stuttered out.

It took a long pause, but something softened in Lora’s expression. She stood slowly, moving to wrap her arms around his shoulders from behind.

“Oh, honey. You had it bad for him right back, huh?”

He must have hesitated too long for it to be natural, because she sighed quietly and continued.

“Well, I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He tried to turn and glance at her, but she was already pulling away.

He managed to catch one of her hands, though, and pressed a kiss to her palm.

“It doesn’t – I mean. I still feel – about you, you know it doesn’t change anything,” he said, not sure how to say it. He’d never really had to acknowledge it before, outside of a few fleeting encounters.

“And why should it?” she whispered back. “Have you seen him? Have you  _ met  _ him? He could tempt a brick wall. And he is right about you, you know. Fantastic ass.”

That finally drew a laugh through his embarrassment, just as the computer beeped out its signal… it was time.

“Worry about it later. Or don’t – I’m not bothered. Let’s raise some hell,” Lora smirked, stooping to start gathering up her schematics.


	10. 1982 (September 23, Pt. 2)

Thank god for 24-hour dim-sum joints in the greater downtown area.

Lora waved to Alan as he walked into the little apartment with the food, and pressed a finger to her lips as she nodded towards Kevin.

He was leaned back into the couch cushions with the phone in his lap, the receiver to his ear, and his gaze fixed on the ceiling.

“Yeah,” he finally said into the receiver, as Alan set the bag on the table. “Corroborating witness _ es _ , plural, and we encrypted the proof in-place on the server. We put documentation in your mail drop before we even came home. Hell yeah, I’ll be here. I not only owe you one, man, you’re getting your fee three times over if this plays out. Absolutely. Righteous. Enjoy your breakfast.”

Kevin hung up, and let himself mesh more completely back into the cushions for a moment.

“We out of the woods?” Alan asked, pulling his coat off, leaving it folded on the table next to the food.

Kevin blasted out a loud sigh and levered himself up to set the phone back on his work bench.

“Working under the assumption that this is enough for a warrant and court proceedings,” Lora said, eyeing the bag of food, “yes. If not? Well, you boys will be seeing each other in prison, and I’ll be sure to write from the women’s pen.”

“Reassuring as ever,” Alan grinned ruefully.

“It’s the best we got, it turns out,” Kevin said, with a wide shrug. He turned to look at Alan, finally, with a gaze that Alan had tended to associate with chess strategies.

“What?”

“Nothin’. Or. Nah, what the hell. You really thought I was making fun of you?”

Alan shot a pleading glance at Lora, and felt himself going bright red all over again as he looked back to Kevin.

“It seemed reasonable, all things considered.”

Shaking his head slightly, Kevin closed the distance between them, reaching out to rest his hands on Alan’s shoulders.

“Do I really seem like that much of an asshole?”

“You could have  _ asked _ me, damn it! I wouldn’t have cared, if you had asked,” Alan said. He glanced at Kevin’s hands. The reality of their closeness struck him, suddenly, and he looked back up.

“I was sorry! I’m still sorry. And you should see yourself right now, honestly. Do you think you can worry a little less, maybe?”

“I think I worry the exact right amount, actually,” Alan all but whispered.

He hadn’t heard Lora stand up, hadn’t heard her walk over to them.  But there she was, at Alan’s side, reaching up to turn his face toward hers. She eased his glasses off, and leaned up to press her mouth to his with equal care.

When she stepped back, Kevin was already moving his hands to the sides of Alan’s face. Before he could speak, before he could really think, he was being pulled into another kiss.

He could not ignore just how similar they felt, in that regard. Firm, deep kisses, deepening only gradually, that took him out right at the knees.

This was going to be the death of him, surely.

As easy as it would have been to blame the dizzy, euphoric recklessness on sleep deprivation, Alan was hardly so inclined to lie to himself.

Besides, “sleep deprivation” was never going to excuse how readily he allowed them to pull his clothes off, how willingly he was pushed over onto the mattress, or how utterly he gave himself over to gut instinct as they all got caught up in each other.

 

**

 

It was 8:17 a.m., by the clock, when Lora finally pulled herself off of the bed, leaving them to doze while she finally got at the container of bao in the take-out bag.

“Should we call into work today? Or would that look suspicious?” she asked, around bites of food.

Kevin pulled his gaze away from Alan’s face long enough to blink slowly, seeming to consider his words even as he spoke,  “I dunno. I mean,  _ I  _ think you should camp out here. You should probably make sure I didn’t mess your lasers up too much, though.”

“Aw, come on. Don’t joke about my baby, Kev.”

Scoffing in mock offense, he actually pushed himself up to look at her.

“I would never! Calling off would probably look suspicious, though.”

“Christ. I haven’t gone in on this little sleep since I graduated,” she muttered. “Alan, you want any of this?”

He had been listening with his eyes closed, and grunted noncommittally. “I ate a couple on the way back.”

“ _ Scamp _ . Well, it’ll still be here when we leave. Well... maybe not the radish cakes,” she said, eyeing the container as she dug it out of the bag.

“Well, I have a different idea,” Alan offered. “I think we should call Walter and let him in on our little scheme. After we sleep.”

“Walter’s not a board member anymore, though,” she pointed out.

“No, but he’s right,” Kevin nodded, and dropped his head back down to the mattress. “We need everyone on our side we can get. It might not be official, but he’s still got  _ pull _ .”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lora assented.


	11. 1982 (September 23, Part 3)

They met Walter at the same café that Alan and Kevin had used for their chess matches. He’d looked through the documentation in silence, then nodded along to Kevin’s account of how everything had played out, as the afternoon turned gray and drizzling.

“You couldn’t have come to me with this before you went ahead?” he asked, quietly. He took a cloth from his sweater pocket, pulled his glasses off, and went about cleaning the lenses.

Lora looked to both Kevin and Alan before she answered.

“We weren’t... I mean, a really stupendous lack of planning went into this.”

Walter looked up at her, eyebrow cocked, before he looked over at Alan.

“Her, I’d expect this from. When did you grow a sense of adventure?”

Doing his best to ignore Lora and Kevin holding their laughter in, Alan could merely lift his shoulders.

“Don’t look so coy, man, it was your idea,” Kevin muttered into his coffee.

Walter harrumphed a chuckle as he replaced his glasses, and moved to gather up the paperwork in front of him.

“Well, you’re right. Technically, I can’t  _ do _ anything. But you left copies of this with your lawyer, you said?”

Kevin nodded politely.

“Yes, sir, I did. I also made sure I locked down Lora’s work terminal. Goodness knows what I might have bungled with the laser controls.”

“Good,” Walter said, handing the sheaf back over to him. “You either hit them for wrongful termination and residuals, or you can _really_ go for the throat, and I’ll back you up.”

He stood, patted his pockets for his wallet, and peeled out ten dollars.

“Here. Coffee’s on me. And go get some sleep – the three of you look  _ awful _ . And yes, I’ll keep everyone away from your station, ” he said, directing the last right at Lora.

She held out a hand, caught his arm lightly before he could walk away.

“I was so worried that you’d be disappointed. Thank you.”

Walter pulled gently out of her grasp, and patted her shoulder with a small smile.

“Are you joking? You kids burn that son of a bitch, and I can die happy. I just wish I could have been there to  _ help _ .”


	12. Entr'acte - November 1982

**November 24th. Morning.**

*

In an apartment on the edges of downtown LA, Lora Baines squinted at the data readouts from her work terminal, from the night of September 22nd, as well as a corroborating printout from the SDLaser’s memory core.

According to the readouts, there was a rather extraordinary gap in activity, between 12:26 AM on the 23rd, and 5:17 AM the same morning.   
Until you took into account the data from the laser, which had moved through varying stages of activity during that same gap.

Surely, he hadn’t actually _activated_ it...?

A thought occurred to her, a suspicion that she tamped down immediately. Kevin Flynn was many things, but stealing her work? She had no reason to distrust him like that.

Yuri hopped up into her lap, and she had to gently bat the cat’s tail out of her face.

“Do you know what to make of this, Miss Thing?” she asked, reaching up to rub the chubby calico behind her fluffy ears. The cat turned her face toward Lora, letting out a soft mew.   
“No? Just gonna leave me to figure this out while you beg for food? Jerk.”

*

**November 25th. Late afternoon.**

*

The dessert round was still going on inside, and he had to pull his jacket on before he slipped out the back door - he’d spent too many winters in and around L.A.

He knew that he was only so comfortable in large groups because of all of these cousins he’d grown up around, but he also hadn’t spent a holiday around his family in almost fifteen years.

He let out a deep sigh of relief as he rounded the back of the shed - the old marble bench was still there.  
He swept some leaves off, and sat gently, leaning his weight against the shed wall. He let his eyes slide shut, and let himself just listen.

The sounds of the children screaming inside were still audible, even from here. He forgot sometimes that he was old enough, that his cousins were old enough, to be raising families of their own. It was boggling, to say the least.

Someone kicked the side of his shoe lightly, and he opened his eyes to find his mother looking down at him with a critical expression, her hands dug into the pockets of her heavy sweater.  
He straightened up and moved over enough to give her some room. She sat next to him carefully - she was beginning to have to give consideration to her knees in colder weather.

Without a word, she pulled a rumpled pack of Pall Malls from her right pocket, offering it as she did.  
He held up a hand by way of refusal, and she took one for herself, sparking it with the little metal-cased lighter she’d had as far back as Kevin could remember.

“Alright. Speak,” she said, on the exhale.

His first instinct was to curl into himself, to jam his hands into his pockets, hunch his shoulders, and bury his face in the neck of his sweater. He owed her more than that, though, after the past few years.

“Oh, come on,” she finally muttered. “Are you dying? Is there a baby? Is there a _dying baby_?”

And just like that, the laugh bubbled up out of him. He caught her smirk from the corner of his eye, and calmed himself.

“None of the above. Just been a crazy couple of years.”

“Well, that much I knew. This is the first holiday you’ve been home for since what, high school? I knew something really big had to be going on.”

He nodded, slowly, and rubbed a hand over his face before he answered.

“I found my proof, ma. Finally.”

She reached out, caught his right hand to squeeze in her left one.

“Now, that’s my boy. Have they settled, yet?”

“Nothing official. We’re still in the negotiation process, but things are looking good.”

“You need a lawyer?” she smiled, and he shook his head.

“Absolutely not. I’m not dragging you south to fight my battles for me.”

“Suit yourself, but you’d better fax me whatever deal they try to cut you.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will.”

They sat in silence for a long few minutes, and his mother grunted around the filter finally.

“How about life? Overall? You happy? Arcade doing well? Seeing anyone worth mentioning?”

He shrugged again. 'Seeing'. Was that what they were all doing,  _seeing_ each other? 

“Arcade’s turning a profit enough for me to be happy with, yeah. And I am... with... some people that make me happy. Yeah.”

“‘People’? Hm. Don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“It’s new. It's...” he fumbled for words for a moment, not trusting himself to meet his mother's eyes, unable to meet her scrutiny over feelings he hadn't even really taken the time to examine. "Two of my friends helped me get the proof I needed for my lawyer, and things just kinda progressed from there.”

“Do these friends have names?”

“You remember Lora?”

He felt the shift of her shoulder against his.

“Sure. Nice girl. Whip-smart. Too good for you.”

“She is at that. Yeah. Her, and the fella she was seeing. Alan. His name’s Alan.”

She turned that piercing look at him for a moment, and nodded slowly when he finally looked over.

“I remember that name. Didn’t you say you gave him granddad’s chess set?”

“The very same.”

She stubbed out her cigarette on the edge of the bench, then looked back at him.

“Are they happy? Are you happy?”

He grinned back at her, suddenly sheepish.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

She dropped the cigarette end into a coffee can he only just noticed, stood up carefully, and leaned over to kiss the top of his head.

“Well, he won’t be the first young man you’ve run around with. And Lora’s got a good head on her shoulders. Long as you do right by them, I’ll let it be.”

She stepped back, turning that critical expression back on him.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re spending the night?”

When he opened his mouth to protest, she shook her head.

“Say goodbye to your father before you vanish? Please?”

He stood, pulled her into a tight hug.

“Brat like me doesn’t deserve you, ma.”

*

He’d called before he left, and rolled up to Lora’s building just past 10.

She had nothing with her but a small backpack, and the helmet he’d left with her.

“You sure you don’t wanna rest? He’s not expecting us until morning,” she asked, checking that she'd zipped her bag all the way.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You eat already?”

Lora nodded, and strapped the helmet on.

“Yeah, I did. You know the way?”

He nodded back, and minutes later, they were off.

*

**November 26th - Midnight Hour**

*

It struck Alan, as he looked out over the now-black water, watching the waves creep up and back down the sand in the moonlight, that he’d made it to 33 without ever vacationing alone.

For that matter, he couldn’t really remember having seen the ocean at night. His parents had been fond of day trips, but had always liked getting home rather than paying for hotel rooms.

He had no idea how peaceful it could be.  
He was so used to cities at night - to the vague, ever-present sound of streetlamps, the near-constant whisper of traffic, the footsteps of upstairs neighbors and the muffled voices of downstairs ones.

For all the noise of the water, it was such an overwhelming stillness.

He was on the tiny porch of the rented cottage, his feet dangling off into the sand, an open bottle of cheap white zin in his hands. (He hadn’t bothered with a glass - he had nobody to feel presentable for until sometime after dawn.)

Though he registered a few cars passing, the slight putter of an engine, he paid it no mind.   
He simply took another long, slow swallow from the bottle, and let his attention wander back to the waves.

A laugh, at the side of the house, drew his attention as he took another drink.

Lora appeared first, a smile wide on her face as she pulled Kevin along by a hand.

Alan had the place of mind to set the bottle down carefully, and got to his feet slightly less steadily than he might have hoped.

He let himself be pulled into their tight hugs, their exuberant kisses, let himself laugh along with them.

“I thought you weren’t gonna be here until lunch,” he said, almost giddy with the feeling in his chest.

“Couldn’t stand the thought of you here alone, man. And my god, I was just in time, he’s going native!” Kevin declared, stepping back to gesture at him - barefoot, jeans rolled halfway up to his knees, with a t-shirt he’d had since college. “If we’d been any later, gravity might have failed.”

“He’s trying to say that you look better than he does,” Lora said, on tip-toe. “Now, where’s that wine I can smell?”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You already have two unifinished fics that you're supposed to be working on!" I shout at myself, slamming the accelerator to 90 and posting this one wholesale.


End file.
